Quaking Palm: Strikes the target with lightning speed, incapacitating them for 4 sec, and turns off your attack.

Faction Alignment

Pandaren are unique in that players go through the starting zone, The Wandering Isle, neutral. The events in the starting zone will then force them to pick a side, permanently aligning themselves with either the Alliance or the Horde. Once a side is taken, Pandaren across factions will no longer be able to communicate with each other.

Female Character Customization

Hair Streaks

There are eight new hair dyes for Female Pandaren: black, blue, green, orange, pink, purple, red, and silver. You can select these options under "Hair Color."

In addition, three neutral tones have been added, black, grey and brown.

Earrings

Earring options have also been added, which are accessible, unlike hairstyles, via a button on the character customization interface. There are five styles of earrings, as well as a plain option.

First Impressions: The Wandering Isle

These are our initial thoughts from playing through the starting zone in early beta.Initial Quests:Pandaria starts off in a similar manner to the Deathknight starting zone--defeating initiates, learning more about the philosophy, completing quests for a master trainer.Players read four scrolls explaining the philosophy of the four elementals.You're tasked to fetch a wilting lotus--the first sign of death in Pandaria.This leads to an epic series to seek out the four elemental spirits, who are faded and must be reunited to be saved.

Huo, the fire spirit.Master Li Fei teaches you to meditate and strengthen your character--instead of just focusing on physical training to succeed.Once your character has sufficiently meditated and adjusted, you are able to summon and defeat Huo, who then escorts you to the Temple of the Five Dawns in the center of the zone. It's a gorgeous temple reached by winding staircases.

She, the water spirit.You'll need to purify her cursed pools, meditate, and find companions for her to play with.There's some creative questing in there. One quest makes the player hop between poles over water, taking care to watch out for balancing Pandaren hopping around on other poles. Another quest makes you wait patiently for a darting spirit to come over in the water--if you follow it, you will be unable to catch it, but if you learn the spirit's spiriting patterns, you can grab it easily.

Wuguo, the earth spiritAfter you fight verming, the Pandaria equivalent of kobolds, you're tasked to wake Wuguo up--but nothing works, including ringing gongs and slapping oxen, until the water spirit helps.At this point, there were some placeholder quest summaries that hint at fun cutscenes to come.

Dafeng, the spirit of air.As you reach his secret hiding place, you learn that the Hozu, a type of hostile monkey, have defiled many of the scrolls of wisdom at Morning Breeze Village.You destroy the bad scrolls the Hozu have instead written with funny sayings like "Peel Banana, Eat Second" and "Wet Fur Not to Sleep On."This really shows off the use of the Spinning Crane Kick--as mobs are grouped together that have low HP.After destroying the Hozu in Fe-Fang village, you are ready to reach Dafeng who is scared of the Onyx Serpent.In reaching his inner sanctum, you learn to be patient and wait for harsh winds to part, which would damage and eventually kill you otherwise. This seems to be a decent way of introducing new players to raid mechanics.(At this point, I got the special Blizzcon 2011 achievement, Panda Express, for having my Pandaren roll 100 times!)You defeat the Onyx Serpent, perhaps a bit anticlimactically, by shooting fireworks into the air.

Shen'zin SuAt this point, your trainer returns and you escort him to the Western Grove.You cleanse the area of bad spirits and hear him talk how his time has come to pass his knowledge down and step down in an extended dialogue. You learn that Shen'zin Su, the great turtle, is in extreme danger--but nobody has spoken to him for years. You accompany Aysa and Ji, past questgivers, in a hot air balloon over the water, listening as they ask Shen'zin what ails him. He's in pain, but glad generations have not forgotten him. He talks how a pain is in his side--and the thorn is in the forest.The Alliance and the Horde enter. The Skyfire has crashed and you're tasked to accompany the curious Pandaren to see what these new invaders want.I was asked to stop playing at this point to let others in the queue have a chance, but we know that at Level 10, you eventually choose which faction to join--which cannot be reversed.

Lore ImpressionsCan Blizzard create a starting zone that remains immersive while introducing radically different lore and aesthetics? Emphasized philosophy and lifestyle of the Pandaren, with many quests that emphasize the importance of balance, patience, and strength of character. Sample quotes include: "Train as if the air, always present, ever flowing," "life is about creating yourself, not finding yourself," "forget injuries never forget kindness."Appearance: lush groves interspersed with shimmering waterfalls and rustic towns. The zone is rich in primary hues--the temples are bright blue and red, while the plant life is emerald green, uncorrupted by many of the evils of Azeroth.

Screenshots

Male Pandaren

Flirts

Sweet thing, I'ma romance all three of your kingdoms. Meditate on that.

Comments

Comment by merrimerri

on 2012-06-14T18:55:30-05:00

Now to (finally) be on-topic. I actually really really like these, as they will probably be entirely optional, I find them to be unique and fun. World of Warcraft already has trains, planes, and automobiles, why not streaks of dye? Looking more and more forward to Mists of Pandaria every day.

Honestly, I think I would appreciate this more if the female characters weren't stuck with one face. The males have way more face options, while the females get a lot of markings around the eyes, and some very faint freckles and slight shading. The face remains exactly the same.I'm not a fan of the earrings at all, they just don't look right to me. I would much rather that time, effort, and resources be put into creating some meaningful character customization.Both the earrings and streaks seem to be something that could be added via the barbershop.Shouldn't the actual faces of the characters take precedence over the fun frills before live release?/sigh

Comment by merrimerri

on 2012-06-14T19:05:22-05:00

You'd really think people would have learned with Worgen do not ask for a new face, because the old one was too :3

You get what we got.

I for one LOVE these colors. I just hope we'll get the option to customize, and it's not random each time. :P

I like the idea, even though they could be made to appear a little more blended in, less harsh? You'd really think that Blizzard would have learned that many players would be unhappy with the fact that the male characters are given better customization options, and the females are give that ONE face, no choice. Nobody is asking for that face to be changed. We are just surprised and disappointed that we are not given any other options. It's not an unreasonable request at all, and there would be no reason for the model to be changed in any way. The males get a variety of expressions. Where do people get the idea that anybody is asking for a total overhaul of the model? The model is great, the ONE face is great, but there are NO other options. Surely Blizzard can make the distinction between "options" and "overhaul", ESPECIALLY after the worgen thing (ugh).

Comment by MissKyzoni

on 2012-06-14T19:16:59-05:00

i personally wouldn't have my panda have colored streaks in their hair, at first when i saw it i thought "oh no this is gonna be horrible" but after a minute i came to 2 conclusions:1: it is pretty cool2: so what if they add it? it doesn't hurt me and others might enjoy this.

people who do not like it don't make a huge fuss over it, no one is gonna force you to have colored streaks in your hair so don't go all nerd-raging.

Comment by Xenocide117

on 2012-06-14T19:18:20-05:00

In all honesty that is neat. But...can my human get maybe a slightly higher polygon count before the pandarens get custom hair streaks? Please?

Comment by allie2590

on 2012-06-14T19:27:00-05:00

Really blizzard? Are you kidding me? What kind of garbage is this?

I know you want to appeal to the trashy culture of us modern children because we're your biggest consumers, but do you really have to put this kind of uncultured garbage in your games? Wasn't just putting asian stuff in to appeal to those people enough?

I'm just getting sick and tired of how trashy blizzard is. Hammer Time references, table flipping, promoting the complete and utter garbage of our society by idealizing them in the game with things like this, and new Jaina's hair, and also promoting potheads with trolls, among many other things that I don't have time to list. Do they have no self-respect and sense of decency at all?

Sounds like it's time someone finds a new game....

Oh don't worry about that, this is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I can stand to know that the people who play this game are not only the kind of trash who like this, but who would even go as far as to have completely blue hair. I can stand to know that 99% of you are under the influence of several drugs, most like marijuana and, in that same group, are the kind of people that listen to their death metal or whatever really loud. This is 2012, I can't avoid that kind of people entirely and I've come to accept that. But I really thought that Blizzard, as a multi-milion(billion?) dollar company, had some sense of decency, but this expansion, along with some things in Cata that are not so much a problem in the same sense, has shown me what caliber of people these designers really are.

I already feel like enough of a worthless turd in being enticed by video games and too weak-willed to work hard in life like a respectable person, but I think that I've reached a certain limit here.

Thanks for all the fun times though, WoW. I'll remember you fondly with nostalgic goggles.

And to the rest of the WoW community, you may be at ease knowing that one more person like me is no longer amongst your ranks.

EDIT: Reading over my first post, I think I implied that asians have a low quality culture or something. If anyone else got that, I really didn't mean to and I apologize.

How narrow minded can you be?

Comment by danman64

on 2012-06-14T19:34:33-05:00

I think I'd prefer it if they didn't look pasted on. They should look a lot more natural than that. Otherwise, they just look like graphics glitches.

Comment by Silpheede

on 2012-06-14T19:37:22-05:00

Really blizzard? Are you kidding me? What kind of garbage is this?

I know you want to appeal to the trashy culture of us modern children because we're your biggest consumers, but do you really have to put this kind of uncultured garbage in your games? Wasn't just putting asian stuff in to appeal to those people enough?

I'm just getting sick and tired of how trashy blizzard is. Hammer Time references, table flipping, promoting the complete and utter garbage of our society by idealizing them in the game with things like this, and new Jaina's hair, and also promoting potheads with trolls, among many other things that I don't have time to list. Do they have no self-respect and sense of decency at all?

Sounds like it's time someone finds a new game....

Oh don't worry about that, this is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I can stand to know that the people who play this game are not only the kind of trash who like this, but who would even go as far as to have completely blue hair. I can stand to know that 99% of you are under the influence of several drugs, most like marijuana and, in that same group, are the kind of people that listen to their death metal or whatever really loud. This is 2012, I can't avoid that kind of people entirely and I've come to accept that. But I really thought that Blizzard, as a multi-milion(billion?) dollar company, had some sense of decency, but this expansion, along with some things in Cata that are not so much a problem in the same sense, has shown me what caliber of people these designers really are.

I already feel like enough of a worthless turd in being enticed by video games and too weak-willed to work hard in life like a respectable person, but I think that I've reached a certain limit here.

Thanks for all the fun times though, WoW. I'll remember you fondly with nostalgic goggles.

And to the rest of the WoW community, you may be at ease knowing that one more person like me is no longer amongst your ranks.

EDIT: Reading over my first post, I think I implied that asians have a low quality culture or something. If anyone else got that, I really didn't mean to and I apologize.

Thank heavens that views like this are dying out. I've worked as civilian forensic staff with a British police force for 7 years, with bright red, bright pink, and purple hair. There was never any question of my professionalism. I've also never taken drugs. What ridiculous rubbish being spouted by this chap.

Comment by bearmug

on 2012-06-14T19:46:52-05:00

I don't mind the funny colors, but I hope they make them look better. This looks like a graphics bug.

Comment by Xlade

on 2012-06-14T19:49:38-05:00

ZVictor: What you said, it's not even worth quoting. And as I type this I realize I'm feeding the troll, but if you think 10 million players are trash, maybe you should move to the moon or something. No trash there.

Comment by Xlade

on 2012-06-14T19:51:05-05:00

I'm glad those bright streaks got textures. I'd been wondering if I was glitching. I agree though. Lets have some variations on hair color (the base color) and faces pls! If they're gonna give them adult voices, can they have adult faces?

Comment by Rankkor

on 2012-06-14T20:04:14-05:00

I like'em =D

more than like'em I LOVE THEM. Now I am feeling tempted to race-change a ton of my toons to pandaren.

And, for those who don't like it, there IS a black streak option. Just choose black hair + black streak = Invisible streak.

Comment by thegalaxygoddess

Comment by Melilithia

They're cool and all, but, no offense Blizzard... I'd rather my pandaren NOT have a hair color streak, thanks. Please give us an option for no streak.

Comment by Kanariya

on 2012-06-14T20:34:19-05:00

I see Blizzard is doing a throwback to 2004 via hairstyles here. Those earrings are tragic.

Comment by Theodicus

on 2012-06-14T20:39:39-05:00

<cough>Horrible</cough>

Lose the dyed hair . . . please. Only gnomes can rock the different hair colors and get away with it.

Comment by Ansawa

on 2012-06-14T20:55:27-05:00

Really blizzard? Are you kidding me? What kind of garbage is this?

I know you want to appeal to the trashy culture of us modern children because we're your biggest consumers, but do you really have to put this kind of uncultured garbage in your games? Wasn't just putting asian stuff in to appeal to those people enough?

I'm just getting sick and tired of how trashy blizzard is. Hammer Time references, table flipping, promoting the complete and utter garbage of our society by idealizing them in the game with things like this, and new Jaina's hair, and also promoting potheads with trolls, among many other things that I don't have time to list. Do they have no self-respect and sense of decency at all?

Sounds like it's time someone finds a new game....

Oh don't worry about that, this is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I can stand to know that the people who play this game are not only the kind of trash who like this, but who would even go as far as to have completely blue hair. I can stand to know that 99% of you are under the influence of several drugs, most like marijuana and, in that same group, are the kind of people that listen to their death metal or whatever really loud. This is 2012, I can't avoid that kind of people entirely and I've come to accept that. But I really thought that Blizzard, as a multi-milion(billion?) dollar company, had some sense of decency, but this expansion, along with some things in Cata that are not so much a problem in the same sense, has shown me what caliber of people these designers really are.

I already feel like enough of a worthless turd in being enticed by video games and too weak-willed to work hard in life like a respectable person, but I think that I've reached a certain limit here.

Thanks for all the fun times though, WoW. I'll remember you fondly with nostalgic goggles.

And to the rest of the WoW community, you may be at ease knowing that one more person like me is no longer amongst your ranks.

EDIT: Reading over my first post, I think I implied that asians have a low quality culture or something. If anyone else got that, I really didn't mean to and I apologize.

Ha ha oh wow.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Comment by akilleuss

on 2012-06-14T20:58:08-05:00

its more the early 80s rock hairstyles not 2004 someone else said they dont fit the culture if anyone else thinks this take a good look at the Geisa Girls they have beads and ribbons in there hair so this is only slightly off

Comment by faeofwind

on 2012-06-14T20:58:09-05:00

It's cute. I like it .

Just so long as we eventually get the option to chose the color or to not have a streak. And add that option to the other female races while you're at it ;3

^ exactly what i was thinking

Comment by Ansawa

on 2012-06-14T20:58:59-05:00

They're cool and all, but, no offense Blizzard... I'd rather my pandaren NOT have a hair color streak, thanks. Please give us an option for no streak.

NO OF COURSE NOT.

Because we all know after transmog, race changes, and faction changes, Blizzard hates giving people the ability to customize themselves.